Acceptance and the Easy Life
Life is so much easier when we stop resisting it. Good things that happen are easy to accept: a raise, a new relationship, a big customer contract, and having the bathroom scale display 5 pounds less than you expected. It’s easy to accept these arrivals as things we deserve. But what about the bad stuff that arrives sometimes: a letter from the IRS showing taxes owed, your significant other dumps you, the old car needs $1,000 in repairs, and the boss suddenly stops being friendly to you. Bad stuff that arrives is generally not welcomed; we try to prevent it, deny it, and we get angry about it. Whatever the bad “it” is, we didn’t deserve it and we don’t want it.
To get on the path of the easy life, live your life with intentions, but embrace and honor what shows up. Know that each event, each circumstance, and each person appearing in your life
is a gift to you–receive it graciously. Know that the value of each gift depends on how you choose to accept and utilize it. Of the ten steps toward an easy life this may be the most difficult to apply, but the one most likely to bring you a life without struggle.
As humans, we create–that’s what we do. To create a desirable life intentionally is wonderfully satisfying–a joyous and powerful feeling. But our successes can hook us. Each time we succeed, we build more confidence that now we’ve got it–we’ve cracked the secret code of life. Then the unexpected–and often undesirable–event comes along, and we wonder if we really understand after all.
Whether you believe that life’s unexpected events are karma, the result of subconscious creation, or God’s will for us, to enjoy the easy life you must learn to fully accept what shows up. It’s easy to say life is perfect when someone else is encountering misfortune. To still feel the perfection of life when misfortune befalls me is something else altogether. Yet life will always seem a struggle, a battle, and a tough road until we discover the peace resulting from total acceptance.
Total acceptance isn’t grudging acknowledgment and it isn’t token agreement. Total acceptance means to embrace what shows up, loving it because it is you–even if it’s not what you would consciously choose. Once you totally accept what shows up you can change it. But acceptance comes first. You can’t give away what you don’t hold in the first place.
Believing that each person and event showing up in your life is a gift is not just a play on words, not simply an optimist’s view of the world. When you look for a gift you’ll find one–even in the most distressing of situations. Because the gift is always there.
You may doubt this, feeling that there certainly wasn’t a gift in the last undesirable event that came into your life. But if
you weren’t looking for the gift you wouldn’t see it. That’s the way our minds work. We see what we’ve decided will be there. We overlook what we believe will not be present.
Are you ready for an experiment?
To allow yourself the full benefit of this experiment you must be open and curious about what will happen. It’s alright to have doubts, but suspend them for one week and allow for a new experience. If your core belief is that life is difficult, or harsh, a trial, or a struggle–as mine once was–do this for one week:
- Decide for this one week that life is easy.
- Set your intention for your life to be easy this week.
- Each day expect to find new gifts in your life’s events, even the events you would normally call negative ones. When something unexpected and undesirable shows up, intensify your search for the gift until you find it.
- Keep a journal with an entry each day describing the gifts you’ve received and how each gift helped to ease your life.
I’d love to hear about your experience. Please write to jerry@PurposefulGrowth.com and describe what, if anything, changed about your week.
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Purpose is the Foundation of an Easy Life
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